News that the banks are in trouble again for mis-selling, just days after Barclays was hit by a record £290 million fine has once again shaken our faith in the banks.

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News that Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS, are in trouble with the financial regulator once again for mis-selling – this time interest rate protection products to small and medium sized businesses – is just the latest in a long line of scandals to hit the banking industry in recent years.

In fact, it was only earlier this week that Barclays was slapped with a whopping £290 million fine for fixing bank lending rates.

As chancellor George Osborne said, ‘failures in our banking services have cost this country billions’.

Here we walk you through a number of reasons our faith in the banking industry is hanging by an ever-thinning thread…

1. The credit crunch

UK taxpayers spent billions bailing out some of the UK’s largest banks, such as Lloyds and RBS, during the financial crisis – a crisis for which bankers’ greed and completely irresponsible lending practices was largely to blame.

2. Computer meltdowns

IT failures are an all-too frequent occurrence among the banks. Just this week Royal Bank of Scotland’s IT failure this week left millions unable to access their money, while Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank customers have been hit with debit card problems five times so far this year.

3. PPI mis-selling

Payment protection insurance (PPI) is supposed to cover loan repayments in the event you can't work, but the banks have come under fire in recent years after it emerged they had sold the policy to millions of customers. In fact, PPI is now the most complained about financial product ever, with the scandal expected to cost the banking industry some £9 billion in compensation.

4. Mis-selling investments

Speaking of mis-selling, a number of banks have been fined by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the past few years for mis-selling investments to customers. In January last year Barclays was fined £7.7 million for investment advice failings, RBS was fined £6 million in November, HSBC £10.5 million in December…need I go on?

5. Banker bonuses

Banker pay has been the source of extreme controversy in recent years, with executives continuing to amass huge personal fortunes at a time when the banking industry is suffering big losses.

Just two months ago, more than a quarter of Barclays investors humiliated the bank’s directors by voting against their big bonuses – which were awarded despite falling profits. Earlier this year, meanwhile, chief executive of the 83% taxpayer-owned bank RBS, Stephen Hester, was pressurised into giving up his £1 million bonus.

6. Sales targets

These days walking into your local bank branch can be a bit like walking into a Black Widow spider’s web…OK, so that’s a small exaggeration, but ever increasing pressure on bank staff to meet sales targets means that going to the bank has become one long sales pitch and if you don’t have your wits about you, you could end up paying for a product you don’t really need.

7. Low saving rates and high borrowing rates

The Bank of England base rate might have been held at a record low of 0.5% for 39 months – leaving savers with barely a handful of inflation-beating accounts to choose from – but this hasn’t stopped banks edging up mortgage and overdraft rates. Banks put this down to increased borrowing costs but it’s not difficult to see why customers are feeling pretty hard done by right now.

It is all a can of worms. Not only in the UK but also in the rest of Europe and in particular Luxembourg.

Mis-selling is rife and catches the unwary. We know of cases in France and Spain where pensioners now face losing their homes as a result of this practice.

These countries recognise this fraud but unfortunately because the banks were based in Luxembourg they are subject to Luxembourg law that appears to ride roughshod over other European countries laws. It almost appears that Luxembourg runs Europe in the banking world. That's worrying.

Still we ave only just started to see the grime that is going to come out of this banking crisis, am I glad I never worked in that industry.

In the main the banks are dishonest so please dont any one trust them. Sadly their word is no longer their bond. They got rid of branch managers so they could rip us all off. They have done a good job at that if nothing else.

In every other walk of life these days the customer will get ripped-off if there is no regulation to stop it happening. We have reasonable protection with the Sale of Goods act, also good with the Office, Shops and Railway Premises act. So what's the problem with Financial Services?

We have an FSA giving instruction on how to write the minutae of small print but when it comes to Banking practices they are always in react-mode never proactive. Anyone who has dealt with such programmes as 'FSA Arrow' will know what a duff bunch the regulatory authorities are. Banks must also be dealing with the same or similar individuals.

Because of all that is written above I now run an account with Metro Bank, this is strictly unbeknown to the bank that I have been with for the last 40+ years.

Metro Bank is run along very simple lines, has a limited range of financial services and is open seven days a week. It costs nothing to bank there and is perfectly satisfactory for my particular needs.

What you would do if you you happen to live outside London I have no idea, but if you are living in London it is at least an option worth looking into.

Opening an account could not be easier, minimal formality and you can leave with a bank card and cheque-book after 20 minutes or so.

A few years ago a farmer was in dispute with his local bank in Barnard Castle County Durham. It involved tens of thousands of pounds which threatened to bankrupt him.

The bank refused to settle, so he did no more than to dump five tons of manure outside their front door. The bank still refused to settle so this time he filled his muck spreader with more manure and sprayed the whole of the front of bank with it. Windows, doors, the lot. The bank settled his claim.

Do you think that this would work with Barclays? After all they will have to engage on a hugh muckingout. So a little manure on their HQ might help consentrate the mind on what a massive task they have in hand to restore any semblance of 'good citizenship'.

I feel strongly that we are dealing with an unreformable culture, these people seem not that different to Stalinist thinking (priorities different of course).

I have had some success in bypassing the banks in my business with non-bank payment networks, building society backed debit cards, use of Google Checkout and Paypal. I am shocked at how advanced African and the new Icelandic banks are compared to the above, and as for loans from Natwest etc - oh no, I find alternatives and they are becoming more accessible.

I have high hopes of small second tier retail banks rising and dominating in the next 5 years, perhaps African and Icelandic imports, a world apart from the old regimes.

...and yet with that incredibly long list of misdeeds I have yet to hear of a single successful prosecution of a single bank worker for any of these illegal practices. Why are they immune to prosecution?

Roo, they take our money invest it at interest and reward themselves, but nary a penny to the saver (OK a farthing, but as that isn't legal tender, ergo nothing to pay) and then complain that we are most unfair and ungrateful when we challenge them on the pay they get and the bonuses they pay themselves from the money that should be direct to those that made their original investment possible.

I have long resisted buying Barclays shares (even though my father was a senior manager of them, abroad, many years ago). Nevertheless they fleece my account for management charges whilst virtually dormant (done by computer) whilst paying zilch for a healthy balance, reneging on the original arrangement to set off against charges, even when they were paying interest.

There was a time when they would witness a signature on a document. Now they will not even to that. Service? What service?

I used to work in sales for large computer company in the days when computers cost £millions. Anyone in sales was made to sign a declaration with each order achieved to the effect that there were no hidden or corrupt transactions or commitments associated with this order (on pain of criminal prosecution). It was then processed by a department with a separate reporting line to the CFO so that they could not be pressured into accepting unapproved discounts or variations in terms and conditions.

It worked fine and I guess this is how banks should operate, but somehow the lines got blurred and the chinese walls got breached.

The corrupting bonus culture, was like so many things that have polluted this country, imported from USA. A bonus award should be for outstanding service, but how much more effort does it take to sign a £250K deal, than a £250 million deal. None at all. But the numbers game, i.e the zero's, count. As for bankers 'targets' they will be doubtless written in such a way as to make non achievement impossible. And who decides the bonuses? Well, generally the Remuneration Committee comprised of Non-Executive Directors; and who decided the salaries of the Non Exec's- er the Executive Board of Directors. Conflict of interest? Of course not.

As for the banking frauds,- sorry perhaps I should call them mistakes and errors of judgements, why are these not discovered by the mega-million earning big 4 accountancy firms, who carry out the annual audits? Who selects the auditors, well the Board of Directors of course. What about the FSA? A fat lot of good they are as Regulators. Apart from actions against minor firms they only identify fraudulent, dishonest and inappropriate behaviour after the event. What do they do? Sometimes issue a 'big' fine, but one which major banks and multi-nationals can easily pay. But do the Directors pay the fine? Of course not. It all comes off of the balance sheet.

Why when wheels come off is it always claimed to be the fault of a 'junior' employee? Top managers never know anything, so either they are incompetent or involved. Either way they are happy to slaughter a low level operative, and even if that was a genuine explanation, why was such a junior person making mega-bucks deals unsupervised?

I could go on, but as the article is headed 'Fifteen reasons we don't trust banks. Why only 15?

The fine should be paid by taking £2M from every director, £100k from every employee who got a bonus of more than £200k and the rest from all the other employees on a pro-rata basis. If they were not involved then someone should have blown the whistle. It is a crime to fail to report malpractice.

Ia year seem to remember a year or two ago this Diamond thug saying that itwas time to forgive bankers and for everybody to accept their nefarious practices. What value do these trite statements have today. They have been shown not to provide a service as to be corupt, evil gamblers.

I like the idea of any fines being paid from the general bonus pot, surely that would focus their minds on honesty and integrity! It is horrific to discover how much they have been fined - because ultimately we will all end up paying for this ourselves - where is the sense in that?

However that aside, most other 'professions' (and I use this word very loosely in relation to banker)s have a professional body or licensing system which deals with problems with members who behave outside their code of ethics and those people usually lose their right to work in this country and possibly elsewhere. Why on earth shouldn't bankers belong to such a body, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than that, this body should be funded by contributions from the members and not by another ineffective, over rewarded, useless quango like the FSA.

There are many topics covered and they all point to the financial corruption we have been subjected to for so long . The only country which has made a serious effort to expose the Banksters is Iceland.

The world should take note of Iceland as the people stood up and said they refused to pick up the bill for the incompetent greedy Bankers who had looted other countries with their scams.

We should stand up in the same way and refuse to allow the government to bail out the banks with taxpayers money.

These crooks should be locked up and there should not be bonuses for these incompetent people.

Its worth remembering when things changed. It was Thatcher, another of our PM's in awe of the USA, who thought that Reagan knew better than the people who reined in the bankers after the depression.

If you haven't seen "Capitalism: A Love Story" you might not have seen the clip of Reagan being told to "wrap up" his speech by the boss of Merry Lynch. The look of fear in his eyes tells you all you need to know about who was in charge.

What amazes me is that it takes press articles about banks ripping off their customers in some new way before the FSA even seems to realise there is another problem. Then they start dishing out fines after all the damage has been done instead of preventing it in the first place, but then they wouldn't be able to issue a fine. Hmmm!

To put it very simply, the current banking regime is clearly unfit for purpose, and although it grieves me to say so would be better for the country if nationalised. (still can't believe I said that, but you really have to try very hard to get things as wrong as the banks have)

If you nationalise the banks you place them in the hands of politicians who are not noted ffor honesty and integrity and civil servants who are not noted for competence in running anything without great waste (e.g. Ministry of Defence)

Raj's comment re talent may be valid, but is that not the reason that Banks , multi Nationals, Railways, Post Office, Local Authorities, multi nationals etc, etc, etc, consistently use for claiming the need for exorbitant salaries and colossal bonuses? "We have to offer these rates to get the right type of people, with the necessary skills" is the standard mantra. Why should people get bonuses for doing what they are salaried to do, i.e. meet the requirements and demands of the job? That goes for transport workers Olympic Delivery Committee and etc as well. Just because the bus, and the Tube is full does that justify extra pay, after all there are no pay deductions when transport is only partly full, and as for the Olympic Committee Directors what risk was there that competitors would not attend in search of Titles and medals? None at all. So what was the risk that that Committee took? None- they didn't even put up a penny of their own money in this venture.

The basic problem is greed, pure greed, coupled with the lack of penalties for failure- indeed in many multi-nationals totally useless Directors who have failed are given vast sums to go away- and mess up another job where they will be greeted with a Golden Hello. Its corruption in anyone's book is it not?

And then we have the army of Regulators. What useless toothless lot. They only act after the event and even that action is pretty nominal. But large salaries and jobs for out of work politicians are the name of the game here.

The new financial Regulators, replacing the FSA, will be with us next year, same people, different titles and as was announced many months ago, "We need to pay higher salaries to attract the right sort of people". Given the employment situation, there ought to be a rush for any reasonably paid job,( (there are plenty of banking staff without jobs) so high salaries are not necessary are they?

I know the fraudulent schemes specially set up in this Bankster Paradise and the dire effects they have had on hundreds of elderly retired pensioners who are losing their homes because of figures being manipulated and outright fraud.

Beware of Luxembourg or any financial instrument or scheme set up there.!

Until places like Luxembourg are held to account, corruption, abuse , manipulation of figures and false accounting will exist and places like London will follow the example of Europe's cesspit.

Bankers Havens must be strictly controlled as it is they who harbour the very worst of the banking crooks and allow illegal schemes to be slipped in through the back door .

I have followed what has happened to all the elderly victims, many of whom have died. I have read ICEBLOG which was linked on here. Landsbanki is a perfect example of how far Banksters will go when they are hiding in such places as Luxembourg and London.

It is disgusting to see an arrogant country abusing hundreds of old aged pensioners and seizing their homes.

How low can these bankers go?

For how long can governments turn a blind eye?

Shame on you Cameron.

Shame on you Junker!

Both these men have known about the corruption and thought they could ignore it.

Sadly the professional finance world seems no longer to have any morals. Blatantly untrue statements are boldly placed in investment advertising material and Brochures, with back-covering caveats hidden in the small print. FSA ignores this, even in one case,of which I am aware post Lehman's, when the Plan Manager who secretly invested client funds in Lehmans and millions were lost as a result, the 'offending' firm had been disciplined for marketing much the same product 5 years before before. What happened after the first incident? Oh the investment scheme was repackaged, renamed and off they went again.FSA didn't notice, even though its satellite, FSCS was suing that firm, attempting to recover monies paid out in compensation, which had of course, been levied against other firms. Self-regulation of the 'professions does not work, if the offender is unlucky he'll get a smack on the hand and told to not to be a naughty boy, and having lost clients' millions what can he do when FSA found him liable- easy go into Administration, and later buy the profitable part of the book from the administrators- and off we go again. So every one wins, professionals, accountants, auditors,lawyers- everyone apart from the poor old investor who lost his money.

There's not much I admire in USA, but SEC does generally get stuck in and 'jolly decent bankers' and the like see the inside of a US prison for endless years, and believe me, in many US States, prison is not to be recommended, old fashioned penal remedies live on.

I concede that some elderly people may have been pressurised into signing contracts which they now regret, but no Govt. can be universally responsible for the myriad sharp practices which are perpetrated every day. It's an endemic trait of human nature.

I would be willing to give you my whole hearted support if I could be sure that 80% of what you say is true.

Unfortunately, up until now, I am not convinced that you have proof of what you allege has actually taken place.

If "hundreds" of pensioners had been evicted from their homes through sheer thuggery and racketeering I am sure that some of the least intimidated would have come forward and would have been willing to tell their stories to the tabloid newspapers and the BBC programme "Watchdog"

Ann Robinson's team have a specialised unit which are only too pleased to hunt down rogue traders. There are similar consumer protection programmes on the commercial channels.

But of course the sensible thing to do in the first place is to take legal advice so that you have a clear idea of what you are signing up to. The Citizens Advice Bureau exist to do just that.

As I understand it, and briefly, these pensioners were signed into an equity release scheme that was completely one sided in favour of Landsbanki. It was a contrived scheme totally illegal in Spain and France. Most were British.

They have taken legal advice, lots of it and at considerable cost. They have won a ruling against Landsbanki Lux in both Spain and France having proved the fraud.

However the liquidators, based in Luxembourg, refuse to accept these court findings and are still moving to repossess these properties. The authorities in France and Spain seem to be powerless to stop them.

Potentially there are 400 victims who may well become homeless in the near future if nothing is done.

This is a brief outline. It is obviously far more complicated than this.

London and Luxembourg will simply carry on manipulating, looting and putting together scams to defraud the public.

I think that Milliband was spot on in his astonishingly good speech and that he has captured the public ander which is like forest fire and will not be put out as Cameron and his Banking cronies think.

It would be interesting to here Nigel Farage's UKIP take on this as it is clear the conservatives believe in conserving the Bankers just the way they are as it suits the Club just fine!

Another thing no-one else has touched on. Who do think will end up paying the fine? Do we really believe it will come out of staff wages? Nope. It'll be passed on to the customer.

Criminal prosecutions are the only answer. As pointed out in the Observer a student with no previous convictions got 6 months for stealing a bottle of water costing about three and a half quid after the riots. What's the betting not a single banker is prosecuted?

Chris Clark - re your desire for small, second tier banks - we had them in the 1970s - but not for long as they soon disappeared when the going got tough.

Apart from the fact as pointed out by Raymond Randalle, that PAYPAL and Google are Luxembourg based, how on earth do you manage with such a complicated mix of non-payment networks, building society backed debit cards?

Mr Grumpy - you really cannot mean that you want to Nationalise the Banks.

AsTripehound - so rightly points out, simply look at RBS/Natwest if you want to see how Nationalisation works (or not).

Perhaps you would like to go back to the terrible service provided by all parts of British Rail under Nationalisation.

Firm up the financial regulation side of banking and other financial services and perhaps everything we are seeing at present, will (hopefully) soon be a thing of the past.

So now I worry that there are going to be massive claims against Barclays from the States. When they go for it there they go big, just like they did with BP.

How hard is it to be honest and still make a good profit ? To get the trust of the people you have to be honest and upfront which for a long time people thought was happening with the banks. Now it is going to take a lifetime to achieve that honour.

There has been so much fraud against ordinary honest people. I managed to get hold of some papers about the equity scam in Luxembourg that has caught over 400 pensioners, mostly from the UK, who are facing losing their homes. It is a sad tale of deceit fraud and greed from the day of selling the scam to the liquidation now in progress. They all have their fingers in the fraud pie.

These cases would be a good place for the authorities to start to show that they are willing to protect the rights of the victims of all bank frauds and take a stand against these robbers.

Why be honest and make a good profit, when you can cheat and deceive and make an absolute killing. There rewards are much higher than the punishment you get afterwards. If you get caught you take a slap on the wrist and keep the money and move onto greater things.